Darren Aronofsky

The American Film Institute's 2010 Festival will open November 4 in Los Angeles with the world premiere of Edward Zwick's Love & Other Drugs starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal. Closing the fest on November 11 is Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel and Mila...

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan opened the Venice Film Festival and took the Lido by storm. I talked with the director about the long "nightmare" of getting the script right and financing the film, casting Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel, shooting in a gritty up-close verite style, and how he set a...

The Venice Film Festival, the oldest in the world, is winding up its 67th edition, my first. (UPDATE: The Golden Lion award went to Sofia Coppola's Somewhere on Saturday amid charges of favoritism on the part of jury president Quentin Tarantino; they once dated.) Venice is more intimate than Cannes,...

From October 13 through 28 the 54th London Film Festival will screen 197 features and 112 shorts hailing from over 67 countries. Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go will open the fest, and he will be the subject of one of the Screen Talks, along with Darren Aronofsky, whose Black Swan will also screen. Among the seventy American features playing are Derek Cianfrance's Sundance/Cannes holdover Blue Valentine [pictured], Tony Goldwyn's Conviction, Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff, Aaron Katz's Cold Weather and Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (which will close the festival). The festival is broken into several programs; Gala Screenings (The King's Speech), F...

Movie City News webmaster David Poland has lined up the usual suspects for this year's round of Gurus 'O Gold of Oscar-watching. The top seven ranking is shared by most of this group of 11 voters: 1. Inception2. The Kids Are All Right3. The King's Speech4. Toy Story 35. The Social Network6. True Gri...

Anne Thompson is in Venice and Kris Tapley is in Telluride, but that doesn't stop the two from getting into this year's award hopefuls. Topics discussed include Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, Tyler Perry's prospects, and Venetian rainstorms. Stay tuned for next week's Oscar Talk.

The opening night selection of the sexy R-rated violent thriller Black Swan was something of a gamble for Fox Searchlight and the Venice Fest, which landed loyal fan Darren Aronofsky--after rousing Venice receptions for both The Fountain and The Wrestler, which won the Golden Lion. He talked Searchl...

As a Venice newbie, I got off the speed train from Rome, exited the station to a canal and grabbed a 40-minute ferry to the island the Lido. It's an adjustment. Basically a subway is a ferry here, a taxi is a motor boat or gondola, and houses have water in their basements with a garage for their boat (below). Trucks are boats too; Venice is under constant construction, like New Orleans. The Lido is a lovely resort (a bit like Fire Island or Catalina); I figured out that I needed to rent a bike to get around (I get a silly kick out of passing slow riders on the left). The casino location of the film festival (this is the 67th) is a maze of cor...

The winner of three César Awards including best actor for Vincent Cassel in the title role, Jean-Francois Richet's gangster biopic Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Part One played the Toronto Film festival two years ago. At the time, doomed distrib Senator was set to release the film as well as Part Two, P...